The elusive and endangered
yamaneko.

Photo: Makoto Yokotsuka.

The Iriomote cat is a survivor. For centuries, it employed the surest survival technique of all — avoiding humans — before being scientifically described for the first time in 1967 by Dr. Yoshimori Imaizumi of Tokyo’s National Science Museum.

Its home, Iriomote Island, is one of the southernmost points in Japan. Located more than 1,200 miles from Tokyo, Iriomote is often called Japan’s last true wilderness. With 90 percent of its land still undeveloped, this sparsely populated tropical ecosystem has been the perfect hiding place for the yamaneko (literally “mountain cat”). Favoring dense rainforests and beaches, it hunts and breeds in the island’s lush mangrove stands.

Unfortunately, freedom from the heavy-handed interference of Homo sapiens recently came to an abrupt end. A new resort hotel has just opened on Todomari Beach, one of Iriomote’s most treasured natural spots, and environmentalists are outraged at the development’s potential impact on island wildlife.

“This beach is a precious place; it is not the place to build a hotel,” says local activist Kinsei Ishigaki, standing on the beach, only 20 feet from the new resort. The four-story hotel already has 141 rooms open for business, and will ultimately be expanded into a huge compound with shops and restaurants.

Kinsei Ishigaki wants to keep his
homeland pristine.

Though this type of development is common to mainland Japan, most Iriomote residents flinch at the idea of attracting so many guests. While the island is the second largest in the Ryukyu chain in southwestern Japan, its 70,000 acres are home to just 2,100 people. That averages out to about 19 people per square mile, compared to a whopping 865 in Japan at large.

Before the hotel project, human activities had barely intruded on Iriomote’s wildlife habitat. Farmers cleared some acreage to grow sugarcane, pineapples, and other crops. And recently the island began to draw visitors, with 360,000 coming last year. But the island’s fledgling ecotourism industry caught the eye of Tokyo-based firm Unimat, which saw a lucrative financial opportunity and moved quickly to build Hotel Resort Nirakanai on Todomari beach, crucial habitat for the yamaneko. Even the name of the development — which echoes that of a legendary Okinawan heaven — enrages locals.

Iriomote Island, prime kitty habitat.

Heartbreak Hotel

Because it bears a close resemblance to ancient felines — and because evidence suggests it has existed for about 2 million years — the Iriomote cat is sometimes called a living fossil. It resembles an American bobcat, but with slightly larger ears. On the island, it has prehistoric brethren in the giant sea turtles that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs. Both species, say locals, are threatened by the hotel.

No one can say for certain how many cats are left, but the most common estimate is 100 or fewer. And while endangered sea turtles historically use Todomari to lay eggs, says Ishigaki, none have returned to the beach since the resort began partial operations this past spring. Fully open to the public as of mid-July, the hotel will, he fears, permanently alter the face of Todomari beach and the nearby mouth of the Urauchi River.

“The wild cat comes often around here, along the river,” says Ishigaki, gesturing from the mouth of the Urauchi back into the forested hills. “It uses the river to feed on crab and shrimp — the yamaneko loves these foods.”

The Iriomote cat’s favorite river
– but for how long?

The resort’s impact on the cat is as yet unknown, but environmentalists question whether the shy feline will return to the beach or to the Urauchi River. Like the beach, the river too is a remarkable ecosystem where all manner of life now flourishes, including several protected species. Osprey and crested serpent eagles soar overhead, purple herons feast on fish and tiny frogs, and enormous spiders try to ensnare enormous butterflies in their silky webs.

Ecologists worry that the bright lights of the resort will shatter the river’s pristine wilderness, and Ishigaki fears that pollution and water consumption by tourists will affect both the river and the sea, creating unpredictable and destructive conditions in an interconnected ecosystem. “I didn’t expect so many changes so soon,” he says. “It’s a real tragedy.”

Ishigaki, 57, was born here. His ancestors have lived on the island, as he’ll proudly tell you, for 4,000 years. He is a small man — 4 feet, 10 inches maybe — but his muscles are coiled springs. He has the hands, feet, and skin of a man for whom the outdoors is both workplace and church. Men like him still breathe life into ancient Iriomote tales and songs about the turtle and the cat.

The only type of turtles left on
the beach.

But you don’t have to hold traditional beliefs to be up in arms about what’s happening at Todomari Beach. Ecologically minded western scientists are aghast as well. “This hotel is an international monument to greed,” says Peter Galvin, a biologist and Pacific director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a U.S.-based conservation group. Walking past the hotel, Galvin gestures toward decorative stone sea turtles, part of the resort’s oceanic theme — then notes with irony that these may be the only turtles anyone sees on Todomari Beach from now on.

Not Enough Room to Swing a Cat

Sightseers at Todomari marvel at the varied hues of water where the river meets the sea. Surfers come to catch perfectly shaped waves. Locals and tourists alike walk the soft, white sands, taking in views of rainforests and dramatic rock formations known as sea stacks. Visitors to Iriomote are often amazed by the diversity of life — and shocked to learn that they are a threat to it. Some island advocates say that educating tourists about where and how to recreate is as important as saving habitat.

A surfer at Todomari Beach.

“It’s very beautiful here, and it’s very sad that the hotel will destroy this beautiful nature,” says Chie Shimada, 29, a traveler from Tochigi Prefecture in mainland Japan. “But if someone gave me a ticket to this hotel, I would probably come. It’s difficult to make people understand the bad things about this resort hotel.”

To locals and environmentalists, though, the threat posed by the resort is obvious. They’ve been fighting to stop the project since November 2002. Environmental groups, including the World Wildlife Fund of Japan, called for a halt to development. Ishigaki and his allies filed suit to stop the hotel in March 2003, but the case was quickly rejected by the courts. Japan’s environmental laws don’t have the potency of U.S. legislation — and many locals feel that the Tokyo central government cares little for what happens to their island, so long as mainland corporations make substantial yen.

Islanders point out that they aren’t hostile to tourism, so long as it doesn’t overwhelm the island. Ecotourism provides a living for locals, but many Iriomote ecotour operators are among the most vocal opponents of the new resort. They want to see their growing industry do minimal harm to wildlife. If that’s not the case, Ishigaki predicts, “punishment will surely come.”

By the word “punishment,” he doesn’t mean criminal sanction or tort claims in the courts; he’s talking old-school divine retribution, and Ishigaki isn’t kidding or trying to be quaint. In traditional island stories, divinity comes in the form of kamisama — nature spirits. The sea turtles are messengers from the sea gods; the yamaneko itself is the incarnation of the mountain god. Hunters traditionally pray to the mountain cat before entering its territory to take wild boar, and then pray in gratitude after a successful hunt.

Already, a typhoon has buffeted the beach near the resort, eroding sands and toppling a lifeguard stand. This, says Ishigaki, is only the beginning.

But can you trust a label just because it says “sustainable” and sports a fetching graphic of a tree? Where the timber industry’s “Sustainable Forestry Initiative” is concerned, many environmental activists say, it’s caveat emptor.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative was developed in 1994 by the American Forest & Paper Association, the largest timber lobby in the world, as an industry program to boost environmental performance. While some environmentalists say the organization offers a framework to help industry improve, Michael Brune, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, calls the SFI “a new green coat of paint over the same tired practices.” In November 2003, RAN and a coalition of environmental partners began a campaign called “Don’t Buy SFI” to enhance public awareness about what they call industry-sponsored greenwashing.

If SFI has existed as an organization for 10 years, why are environmentalists particularly concerned right now? Because last year the group launched a new “green” product label — and backed it with a massive, multi-million dollar marketing campaign featuring full-page advertisements in The Wall Street Journal and spots on National Public Radio, among other outlets. This push, says RAN Old-Growth Campaign Director Jennifer Krill, constitutes “strategic deception. Everything about the SFI, at its core, is misleading.”

Charging that the program doesn’t protect forests and ignores crucial social issues, the anti-SFI coalition, which includes such groups as ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, American Lands Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, has produced a website with a photo gallery of lands devastated by logging. Sobering shots of clearcuts are nothing new — but the sites in these images were harvested by SFI-certified companies that qualify for the new eco-label.

“[Promoting this label] is a reflection of the logging industry in deep denial,” says Brune. “They’re hearing a consistent message from their customers, their shareholders, and the public at large that the status quo is unacceptable — yet they’re proceeding on course as if nothing has changed.”

SFI: Same Forestry Industry?

SFI: Same Forestry Industry?

The anti-SFI coalition considers the program’s certification system inferior to one operated by the Forest Stewardship Council. FSC, an independent initiative founded by forestry professionals, environmentalists, indigenous groups, and sociologists in 1993, is “miles ahead” of its industry-backed competitor, according to Brune.

Certainly, the standards differ in several critical ways:

• Old growth and endangered forests. SFI has “no standards preventing old growth from being logged, period,” says Daniel Hall, forest biodiversity program director at American Lands Alliance. Since old-growth protection isn’t one of SFI’s “core indicators” for compliance, protecting ancient trees is voluntary, not mandatory. By contrast, FSC’s standards specifically require protecting the full conservation value of ancient forests, meaning no diminishment in their ecological function is allowed.

• Biodiversity. Unless carefully managed, diverse natural forests in places like the southeastern U.S., which has more endangered forest ecosystems than anywhere else in the country, can quickly turn into monocultural tree farms. SFI standards don’t take this into account, permitting member companies to log a diverse forest and replace it with a single species. Environmentalists say that this emphasis on logging and replanting ignores critical factors like wildlife habitat and biodiversity. “The ‘cut a tree, plant a tree’ model does nothing for ecosystems,” says Kim Marks, a field organizer with ForestEthics’ wood campaign. FSC’s core criteria for forest management include preservation of ecosystem diversity.
• Global forests. Seventy percent of the world’s remaining pristine forest tracts are in Russia, Canada, and Brazil. SFI only certifies U.S. and Canadian mills, not actual logging operations, so the companies that operate those mills may well buy wood from sensitive overseas locations and still qualify for the label. FSC tracks wood from the forest to the shelf and applies its standards in at least 57 countries around the world.
• Social issues. FSC flatly refuses to certify wood harvested from areas where there are unsettled land claims or outstanding disputes involving indigenous people. By contrast, nothing within SFI’s standards requires consultation with native people about logging practices. Similarly, FSC recognizes workers’ rights to union organization, while SFI does not.

Moreover, says Hall of American Lands, any system is only as credible as its lowest common denominator — and “if you look at the companies that follow the minimum standards SFI allows, you’re talking about some of the worst forest and paper product companies on the continent.”

A Sierra Pacific Industries clearcut in
California.

Photo: Central Sierra Environmental
Resources Center.

Sierra Pacific Industries — which is certified by SFI but not by FSC — clearly demonstrates the difference between the two labeling models, Hall contends. The company benefits from SFI’s lack of forest-diversity standards, Hall says, “because Sierra Pacific is converting 70 percent of their 1.4 million acres of California forests to these ecologically impoverished pine plantations.” The firm has also come under major criticism in the past for its clearcutting practices.

Consumers buying green-labeled products generally assume that the product has been tracked from the chainsaw to the shelf — a process called “chain of custody” tracking. But companies can qualify for the SFI label without knowing where the vast majority of their wood products originate, Brune says, which undermines the credibility of the label.

The SFI label’s certification process applies only to particular mills, not to specific companies or products. Thus if you go to your local lumberyard looking for a two-by-four, you might see one with SFI’s “certified participant” label — but that label doesn’t necessarily mean that the board came from a certified logging operation. It means that the mill where the board was produced meets SFI’s loose and often voluntary standards.

In fact, it’s technically possible that none of the wood bearing the SFI label is harvested in a way compatible with SFI standards. To earn the label, mills that are primary wood producers are required to obtain one-third of their wood from suppliers that are either enrolled in the SFI program or meet guidelines set by the American Tree Farm System, which “make SFI standards look rigorous,” says Hall. Two-thirds of the wood doesn’t have to meet any standards at all.

“If you don’t know where the wood is coming from, how do you know that it was logged responsibly?” says Brune. “It’s a farce.”

A Clearcut Case?

SFI critics acknowledge that the organization has made some strides. It has moved toward independence from the timber industry by creating a separate “Sustainable Forestry Board” to provide standards input and has improved third-party verification of company practices. And, the new board says, social concerns such as labor rights and indigenous people’s rights will be considered when SFI revises its standards in 2005.

Building momentum.

Laurie Wayburn, president of the nonprofit Pacific Forest Trust, an organization focused on preserving and enhancing private forestland, is one of five conservation-organization representatives on the 15-member Sustainable Forestry Board. She has also worked with FSC from the group’s beginning. “[W]e need many different answers to stop [the deforestation] trend, and joining the [SFI board] is an opportunity to work with some of the key owners of forestland in the country,” she says.

Paul Portney, another member of the Sustainable Forestry Board and president of the natural-resources think tank Resources for the Future, concurs. “The board has been able to move the industry along at a much more rapid clip on issues related to sustainability than likely would have been the case if SFI had not been launched and [the Sustainable Forestry Board] had not been created,” he says. Despite their opposition to the labeling program, some environmental critics of SFI agree on that score.

Bill Banzhaf, president of the board, says that FSC and SFI “have different strengths” as labeling programs. “FSC is very strong on chain of custody,” Banzhaf allows. But, he contends, “they can’t cover the breadth of forest that SFI can.”

Of course not, counters Hall: “There’s a reason why SFI has such broad participation in their system: They took a look at what people were already doing, and said, ‘That’s what we’re going to certify.’”

Likewise, RAN’s Krill blasts the program’s entire standards document as “meaningless,” noting that most of its “core indicators” merely require compliance with existing U.S. federal law. “After looking at the document, I came to the conclusion that this is the most sophisticated … greenwashing program in America’s history,” she says. “There is nothing in this program that ensures forest protection … There’s nothing in this label or in this program that a consumer can trust.”

Marks of ForestEthics agrees. Asked if SFI has a role to play in an ecologically sound future, she responds thusly: “You can’t stop corporations from getting together and plotting and scheming, and that’s what SFI is. That’s the role they play. It interferes with our efforts. It just gets in the way.”

While prominent retailers aren’t yet leaping to embrace the SFI label, environmentalists fear that the current marketing offensive combined with intensive industry lobbying will build support among institutional customers. Corporations, says Brune, should pay heed to an age-old maxim: The customer is always right — “and customers overwhelmingly want old growth protected,” he says.

The Okinawan coast is not clear.

Photo: Jeff Shaw.

Almost everywhere in the world except in this patch of ocean, denizens of the deep won a reprieve this month, when a court agreement between environmental organizations and the U.S. Navy limited the military’s use of low-frequency active sonar (LFAS). Experts contend that the sonar, which uses high-intensity bursts of sound to track submarines, is deadly for marine mammals and other sea life. Under the terms of the agreement, use of the technology is now restricted to East Asia, including portions of the Sea of Japan, Philippine Sea, South China Sea, and East China Sea — meaning the Navy may soon visit earsplitting noises on endangered animals in Okinawa’s peaceful waters.

Joel Reynolds, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project, calls the recent settlement “a major step forward” toward protecting marine life and a measure of protection “against the proliferation of sonar around the world.” He’s right — but however important the settlement is, it is just a step. And this incomplete victory comes at great cost for threatened species in an ecologically significant part of the world.

The Dugong Show

“The waters off of Okinawa are some of the richest in biodiversity in the world,” says Peter Galvin, Pacific director for the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s been described as the Galapagos of the East, and it’s under siege.”

Dugong but not forgotten.

Photo: GBRMPA.

That rhetoric isn’t hyperbole: Okinawa supports a dizzying variety of marine species. The island’s coral reefs rank behind only Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in terms of ecological diversity, sustaining more than 1,000 types of fish and a host of other spectacular wildlife. One prime example is the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, a manatee-like creature that holds a special place in local culture because it is traditionally regarded as a messenger from the sea gods. Only about 50 of these animals remain alive today in the waters off Okinawa. Any new threat could push this unique dugong population over the brink to extinction.

“We’re very concerned about impacts to the fragile dugong population,” Galvin says. “There’s every reason to believe that these sonar impacts are across the marine mammal spectrum. That’s what the science shows.”

While no study has found that low-frequency sonar threatens the dugong particularly, the risks posed by the technology to other marine mammals are well documented. The sonar can boom out a signal reaching 215 decibels — as loud as an F-15 fighter plane at takeoff. In the acoustic environment of the ocean, this deafening roar can cause stress and severe physical harm to sea life, including marine mammals such as the humpback whales that use the East China Sea for breeding and migratory grounds.

Species like whales and dolphins that communicate with sound face a distinct risk, but it’s not just marine mammals that are affected. Compelling evidence shows that sonar can also be deadly for sharks, fish, and endangered sea turtles, at least three species of which exist off the coast of Okinawa.

At loggerheads over turtles.

Photo: U.S. FWS.

When U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte issued the initial injunction prohibiting use of the sonar in October 2002, she cited the threat to turtles specifically. Laporte wrote that “endangered species, such as sea turtles, will … be in LFA sonar’s path” and that the sonar risked causing “irreparable harm to the marine environment that supports the existence of these species.” The hawksbill, loggerhead, and green sea turtle are all included on the United States’ Endangered Species List as well as the global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. All are found in Asian waters, and all lay their eggs on Okinawan beaches.

These facts point to one inescapable conclusion: This is not the place to deploy an invasive, noisy, and ecologically devastating technology. “This will affect the wildlife around Okinawa very severely, but it will also affect the entire area, from Indonesia to Sakhalin,” says Chalmers Johnson, head of the Japan Policy Research Institute.

Sacrificial Slam

If these seas are so important and sensitive, why were they chosen as the sacrifice area? The nations whose waters will be affected had no role in the court settlement negotiations. Talks between the Navy and environmental groups “were conducted under a veil of confidentiality,” says Reynolds of NRDC, so it’s impossible to say with certainty how this arrangement was reached.

Okinawa’s got the Navy blues.

Photo: U.S. Navy.

It isn’t too hard to make an educated guess, though. Okinawa is already home to a huge U.S. military presence, so making the surrounding seas a training ground is convenient for the Navy. Moreover, because of a vexing dual colonialism, Okinawa is largely powerless to resist.

Though legally part of Japan, Okinawa’s ethnically and culturally distinct people are often looked down upon by mainland Japanese. Okinawa is further politically isolated by its status as Japan’s poorest prefecture and by the lack of a shared history with the rest of the country. (Okinawa’s islands were part of the independent Kingdom of the Ryukyus until they were annexed in the 19th century.)

The U.S. military has been all too willing to exploit Tokyo’s reluctance to stand up for Okinawa. The tiny island chain has been forced to house 75 percent of Japan’s American military bases — though all of the Okinawan islands put together comprise just six-tenths of one percent of Japan’s territory. Okinawa bears the resultant burdens, including pollution on land and at sea.

Johnson, one of the foremost Asia scholars in the U.S., says he isn’t surprised the same technology that raised an outcry when used in Puget Sound is being shipped to the North Pacific instead. “This seems like typical Navy racism,” he says flatly.

Sound Bites

The outcome also raises uncomfortable questions about U.S. environmental groups’ right to decide the fate of Okinawa’s ocean life. If LFAS is a real threat to marine natural resources, as almost every credible scientist seems to believe, then shifting its use to a place most Americans don’t see smacks of environmental racism.

A shore thing.

Photo: Jeff Shaw.

Still, it is difficult to fault NRDC and the five other plaintiffs in the lawsuit for settling; after all, the global environment is better off for it. Indeed, under the settlement agreement, less than 1 percent of the world’s oceans faces the disruption and death caused by LFAS, as opposed to about 75 percent. The settlement also adds seasonal restrictions to sonar tests and limits sonar use near the coastline. “[The plaintiffs] probably thought [the agreement] was the best they could do,” Johnson says. Probably — but the bottom line is that an impoverished and oppressed sea-based culture takes the fall to protect the environment elsewhere.

Moreover, without vigilance, other seas may share East Asia’s burden. Taking advantage of their elevated status in today’s security-conscious environment, the U.S. military is asking Congress to exempt it from the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. This legislative end run would circumvent the court’s ruling on sonar and enable what Galvin calls “a full-scale assault on environmental law.”

“The overall context to keep in mind is that the military is trying to exempt itself from these requirements all around,” says Galvin. “The military is talking out of both sides of their mouths, signing this settlement at the same time that they’re asking to be exempted from all environmental protections.”

Facts haven’t gotten in the way of the military’s push. Even former U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman admitted before Congress that she couldn’t come up with one example of environmental regulations that prevented the military from carrying out its duties. Still, Congress is considering granting these wide-ranging exemptions, which would gut two flagship environmental laws and effectively reverse every victory the new settlement secured.

Now is a pivotal time for developing a real solution for seas around Okinawa and the world. The first step is to defeat these exemptions, which Johnson calls “attempts to establish the military as a force beyond the law that can do whatever it damn well pleases.” The second is to prevent Okinawa and the rest of East Asia from becoming the world’s environmental whipping boy.

NRDC, Reynolds promises, “absolutely” plans to reach out to Japanese and Okinawan environmental groups as part of an international effort. If that happens, and this agreement is followed by a policy that protects oceans everywhere — with no exceptions — from acoustic assault, then the work leading up to the settlement will have been worthwhile.

If not, this agreement represents at best a holding pattern, and at worst, a Faustian bargain. If Puget Sound deserves to be free of low-frequency sonar, then so does the East China Sea.